Love and WordArt
by Recall the Love
Summary: Skywriting and flashmobs? Pah, those kinds of proposals are far too cliché for Beca Mitchell. She has better ideas.


**A/N: Just a bit of fun, but also cracky as hell- I make absolutely no claims to this being totally in character. Also this way of proposing wasn't originally my idea, but the person who gave it to me knows who they are, heh. Written for hey-its-dash who is apparently in a marriage mood lately and wanted a really flustered!Beca proposal to go with thecousinsdangereux's recent adorable drabble on Tumblr (which you should read if you haven't already).**

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'So where's my surprise?' Chloe said excitedly, barely stopping herself from bouncing up and down. She reached up to fiddle with the blindfold Beca had tied around her head not ten minutes earlier before carefully leading her upstairs, trying to adjust it to a position where she could see through the material.

Beca slapped her hands away. 'Stop that. Just give me a second to make sure everything's set up, okay? Don't move from this spot,' she added ominously, 'or I'll know.' She heard a creak and the sound of a door opening that Chloe guessed was probably the one that led into Beca's study, given that it was the only one Beca refused to let her oil the hinges of. Apparently the creak added to the atmosphere of the room or something, but she reckoned that Beca just wanted more warning before Chloe came crashing into her room at four in the morning to make her go to bed.

'Is this a good surprise, or should I be worried?'

'What?' Beca shouted, now sounding as though she were a little way away. There was the sound of typing, clicking, and swearing, followed by a noise of triumph. 'Chlo? What did you say?'

Chloe raised her voice a tad. 'I said, "Is this a good a surprise, or should I be worried?"'

'Wow, I'm right here, you don't have to shout.' Beca was once again in front of her, making Chloe huff. She took hold of Chloe's shoulders and gently guided her forward into the study. 'Well, I've kind of gotten used to your presence so you're in luck – no murder today.' Her nervous laugh didn't exactly placate Chloe's slight nerves. 'And I hope it's a good surprise, at least…'

'Can I take this off now?' asked Chloe, already pulling anxiously at the tie at the back of her head.

'Knock yourself out.'

Her vision returned, Chloe blinked rapidly to adjust her eyes to the light, but then realised all she was really looking at was Beca's darkened study – the lights were all off and the curtains were drawn. She frowned. 'What's the surprise here?'

'It's in there,' Beca said, pointing into the room, where she saw Beca's Mac was sitting right in the middle of the desk. It was full screen mode; from here Chloe couldn't read the text – but it definitely looked…

… like a PowerPoint presentation...?

'Beca…? What is this?'

'Oh, just go in and sit down already.' Exasperated, Beca gave Chloe a little push into the room. In normal circumstances this probably wouldn't have done much at all, but Chloe was busy staring at the screen trying to work out what on Earth Beca was up to, so she had the element of surprise on her side. Chloe stumbled a little as she fell over the threshold, but before she could get her bearings the door slammed shut behind her - and to her alarm, a moment later the lock clicked into place too.

'Hey! Beca, what the hell are you doing?' Chloe yelled. She pulled at the handle, but it would not open. Damn that outside lock she'd convinced Beca to install so she wouldn't be tempted to lock herself inside the room when she was in the middle of her mixes. 'Why in _Mariah Carey's name_ have you locked me in here?!'

Chloe was seriously beginning to wonder whether Beca had somehow gone insane in recent months without her noticing. She _had_ been acting a little strange lately – nothing too odd, but things like being oddly protective of her Mac when Chloe was around and spending a lot of time playing with WordArt. But this? This was beyond the pale.

Fortunately – although, no less confusingly - it seemed she wouldn't have to wait long to find out. 'Don't worry! Just go look at the screen!' Beca shouted back.

'What?!'

'I want you to watch something!'

'Beca, I'm perfectly capable of watching something without being locked in a room!' Chloe hollered. 'Let me out!'

'No! I know you won't just behave and watch it, so I'm locking you in so I can force you to!'

'And what if I don't?' Chloe challenged.

'Well then,' said Beca, 'you won't get your surprise. It's worth it, Chlo – please just humour me.'

A pause.

'Fine,' said Chloe grudgingly, dragging her feet over to the laptop. 'What even is this, Beca?'

'How about you use those beautiful baby blues and actually read what's on the screen, Chlo?' Chloe rolled said eyes, but acquiesced nonetheless, flopping down onto the desk chair. The things she did for Beca sometimes. This was worse than the time she'd convinced Chloe to tell Aubrey they'd had sex on her couch for an April Fool's prank – and, possibly as bad as that time she'd coerced Chloe into actually _doing _that.

"'Why All Proposals Are Cliché, a presentation by Beca Mitchell",' Chloe read aloud. She'd even made the title in Wordart, helpfully pointing this out with a little note underneath_: Look, I even put in beautiful Wordart for you._ 'Beca, excuse my language but what the fuck is this?'

'I thought the title should be self-evident. Don't you remember the discussion we had about proposals a little while ago? When you said they were always so romantic in movies and novels, and I -'

'Told me they're always really cliché,' Chloe finished for her. 'Unfortunately, I do… But seriously, a _Powerpoint_, Beca?'

'I'm not letting you out until you read it - and there will be a test afterwards,' Beca shouted through the door. 'Let's call it revenge for that whole shower incident.'

'Will you ever let that go? It's been six years and we both know you enjoyed it!'

'I admit nothing!' Beca retorted. 'Now, if you're talking you're probably not reading… Which means you're probably not getting out anytime soon.'

'Ugh, okay! Fine...'

'Make sure you watch it as a slideshow, or you'll miss all the awesome animations and transitions.'

'You actually added all that stuff?' asked Chloe, lips twitching in amusement.

'Only the best for you, Chlo,' came Beca's typically dry response. 'Now come on, I don't have all day.'

Chloe shook her head. 'You're freaking crazy, you know that? You're lucky I love you.'

'I know, and I thank God every day for it. Anyway, I don't think you're reading in there, Beale!'

'Alright, alright!' Chloe finally opened up the PowerPoint as a slideshow. When the slide transitioned smoothly using the checkerbox animation Chloe realised Beca had been serious. She let out a chuckle. Beca really was a complete dork at heart, much as she'd tried to hide it.

The first slide was titled 'Public Proposals.' On it were several low quality screencaps of various such proposals that had been posted on Youtube, which were just specific enough for Chloe to recognise they were from her own browsing history – much to her embarrassment. Alright, maybe she did watch too many of those videos, but they were cute, for God's sake.

Around the images were several sentences in Comic Sans, of different sizes.

_why do people do this_

_IT JUST PUTS PRESSURE ON PEOPLE_

_I don't get it_

_help_

_what_

_why would you do that in a home depot_

'How dare you! That home depot video is adorable, Beca!' she cried.

'Just keep going!'

Chloe obediently – albeit sulkily – clicked onto the next slide. This one was entitled '_Ten Reasons Why Diamond Rings Are Ruining the Economy_'. God, how long did this go on for? She pressed the Esc key to get out of the slide show and read through the titles of the rest of the dozen or so slides seeing things such as '_Why Skywriting is a Fucking Awful Idea: Part 2'_ and '_Seriously Who The Hell Hides Rings in Food What Is That You're Ruining A Good Chicken_', making her snort. Beca was so damn ridiculous sometimes.

She skipped to the last slide, which was unfortunately covered in overlapping clipart and Wordart - Beca had set up the slideshow to make all of it zoom off the screen using animation paths, but that made it impossible to see what was underneath it all now. The title said 'MOVE THIS TO SEE YOUR SURPRISE'. Sighing deeply, Chloe set to work deleting all of Beca's random pictures of rings and crying faces and zebras (?), finally unearthing the single text box and a small clipart of a ring that was underneath.

When Chloe finally found it, her mind went into overload so quickly that she thought she had passed out for a moment.

_SURPRISE!_

_Hope you liked your PowerPoint. I am a master of clipart and the checkerboard animation, it is true._

_And now, for your actual surprise (because you must've guessed what's going on by now Chlo):_

_Please turn around, 'cause I'm kneeling really awkwardly in the doorway with a real ring for you, waiting for you to say that you want to spend the rest of your life with me?_

Chloe had to read the sentence several times before she got the meaning, and when she did, she gasped and whirled to face the door – however, it was still closed, even though she could hear a lot of scratchy noises and Beca shouting from behind it.

'Beca?' she called fearfully. 'Beca, get in here!' After another moment of scrabbling, Beca finally got the door open.

'Sorry, sorry,' she said, looking distressed, 'I couldn't unlock it, my hands were shaking too much... Did you reach the end?' she asked, looking over Chloe's shoulder. Seeing the final slide of the presentation, her eyes widened. 'Shit! You're already there!'

She immediately dropped to one knee, teetering precariously for a moment because of the speed at which she'd done it. 'Chloe, I – aw, fuck!' She suddenly realised she hadn't even gotten her ring out. After some panicked delving in her pockets and self groping in order to find it, she eventually managed located it in her back pocket. It took another minute to get her fingers to work long enough for her to open it and then hold it out to Chloe. She was panting like she'd just run a marathon, but Chloe wasn't much better, since oxygen had stopped being so much of a priority since reading that final slide.

'Um...' Beca swallowed, tripping over her words. 'I know this wasn't what you were expecting, but... it's – it's me, this is the sort of weird thing I do, the things I do for you. Because I love you; like, a lot. More than anything, actually, it's kind of weird…' She rubbed the back of her neck with the hand that wasn't holding the ring. 'And you already knew I'm a total dork for you. So I thought I'd do something silly like this that you wouldn't expect and would make you laugh, and hopefully make you see why we belong together.'

She met Chloe's gaze, a slow smile spreading across her lips despite the way her cheeks were glowing bright red. 'But anyway, what I'm trying to ask, even though I'm completely fucking it up…' Beca took a deep breath. Her next words were completely steady. '... Chloe, will you marry me?'

The silence that followed, Beca would tell her grandkids in the future, probably gave her at least ten grey hairs as she stared up at her girlfriend, waiting with a pounding heart for the answer.

Especially when in the end, Chloe broke eye contact, and turned back to the computer.

'Um - _Chloe_?'

Beca's voice had gone high-pitched from fear and she nearly fell over when she reached for her. But Chloe didn't respond. Instead of answering verbally, she was tapping something on the keyboard. 'W-what are you doing?' asked Beca in confusion, but Chloe shushed her, standing up to block the screen with her body.

She made a new slide as quickly as she could, typing some new text into it and making that current slide full screen. When she was done, she unplugged the laptop and carried it over to Beca, sliding down onto her shaking knees.

Silently, she handed it over. The screen read, in massive WordArt that filled the screen:

**OF COURSE I'LL MARY YOU, also you're a complete and utter DORK and I love you SO GODDAMN MUCH Beca**

'You made a typo,' Beca joked weakly, although it was hard for her to look at all badass or sarcastic when her eyes were filled with tears and she had the most ridiculous smile on her face. 'So I'm not sure if you're saying you want to marry me or mary me…'

Chloe set aside the laptop. She then crawled into Beca's lap, cupping her face and crushing her lips to her (now) fiancée's. In between kisses, she mumbled, 'It's a yes – God, it would always be a yes. But on one condition… Please, _please, _Beca_… _Never make me a PowerPoint again...'

'Sure,' Beca laughed, letting herself be pushed onto her back before leaning up to capture Chloe's lips with her own.

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**A/N: And yes, this WAS how Checkerboard was going to end, if any of you remember that fic. Ha. And now you know why that was the title. Surprise.**

**My girlfriend apparently cried reading this. Don't worry, I assured her this was not how I would do it. Instead, I will make her a beautiful Excel spreadsheet. But shh, it's a secret.**


End file.
